OFF BLUE

DESCRIPTION OF EVENTS

"According to Set Protocol’s Anthony Sassano, Blue Kirby created his online persona in the early summer months, riding on the back of Andre Cronje’s wildly successful robo-crypto hedge fund Yearn." "Blue Kirby’s Twitter account emerged in the space at the end of July, right as Yearn Finance was gaining traction from its ground-breaking 100% community-owned, supposedly “valueless,” governance token. YFI turned out to be anything but valueless and quickly soared to as high as ~$42k. Blue Kirby positioned itself at the center of the YFI boom, producing educational material, churning out bullish tweets, and meme-ing itself to crypto Twitter fame."

"The pseudonymous token cheerleader quickly rose through the ranks of DeFi community members on Twitter as witnessed in community allocation of $7,000 per month for his tireless promotion of the YFI token."

"There have been a few shady projects in the NFT and DeFi space as of late. In a lot of those instances, a user known as Blue Kirby was either involved, allegedly involved, or had some very choice words regarding these matters. Eventually, he decided to explore an NFT-ICO hybrid under the OFF Blue banner, raising over 2,400 Ether in the process."

"We planned on using the art sale to further fund our custom platform, pay all team members throughout project blue (8 - 13 months) and acquire some epic art to auction on the platform."

"The rate at which NFTs were being sold quickly raised red flags, leaving many to wonder what was being done with the funds that were loosely allocated to different buckets, and question whether Blue Kirby was simply keeping it all."

On "October 10, 2020 - Blue Curby pulled an exit scam with the Off Blue project." "The platform raised some $800,000 in ether before its NFT host Rarible shut down the marketplace on Oct. 10." "Blue Kirby decided to delete his Twitter and OFF BLUE no longer exists on Rarible.. Interesting timing, after conducting an ICO-NFT sale."

"During the ICO, OFF BLUE sold NFTs on Raribe for a to-be-determined project. Very little was known about it, yet people contributed money like crazy. An exit scam was always the most likely outcome with so much money at stake. Unfortunately, it has happened once again, and many users are “pissed”, to put it mildly."

“People presumably understood that Blue Kirby was going to disappear with their money. This resulted in a lot of feedback we received from users, warning us about the potentially dangerous long-term impact of this sale,” Alexander Salnikov, co-founder and chief product officer at Rarible, told CoinDesk in an email.

"We have suspended the OFF BLUE team account until further examination due to potential violations of our terms of service. Rarible is not intended to facilitate capital-raising transactions. Please see https://rarible.com/terms or contact info@rarible.com for details."

"When Off Blue started to unravel, Blue Kirby deleted his 20k follower Twitter account and said he was removing himself from the Off Blue project via a post-mortem closure post. He was able to leave as quickly as he came, except with earnings from his Yearn and NFT work."

"As detailed in two worthwhile reads, DeFi community members allege Blue Kirby unfairly exercised influence over the Yearn.Finance ecosystem and then conducted a questionable initial coin offering (ICO) for a non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace called “Off-Blue.”"

"Without skin in the game, Blue Kirby had little incentive to act in community members’ best interest in the long term, crypto industry members said. And without a real name, they now have little recourse."

"[A] public doxxing campaign went forward on the anarchic message board 4chan identifying at least one individual as the human face behind Blue Kirby. Attempts to reach that person for comment were unsuccessful, and it has not been conclusively proven that he is indeed Blue Kirby."

"What is intriguing is how Blue Kirby still has an active account on Rarible. Even though he is behind the scammy project – which no longer exists – his personal account is still there. It has no items for sale currently, yet his Ethereum address containing nearly $150,000 in assets is still publicly visible."

"Whereas some investors had hopes of seeing Rarible intervene, it seems unlikely that will be the case. The team confirms it has suspended the OFF BLUE account for violating the ToS. This does not relate to scamming over 2,400 Ether, but rather due to “facilitating of capital-raising transactions”. A very meek reply, but that too was to be expected. Only “select people” can respond to this Tweet, further adding fuel to the fire."

"Surprisingly, the ICO is currently offering refunds." "The project has been accused of rug pulling millions of dollars, which has now been refunded, 1 ETH for 1 NFT, as it closes." "The team is now returning the Ether, a claim process that will go on for the next 14 days. In case one does not claim the refund, it will go towards the development of the OFF BLUE, which the team continues to build."

"To the team who worked tirelessly building OFF BLUE... I failed you guys. It sucks and I'm sorry. The refund process has now begun. 1 NFT = 1 ETH. The claim period will be open until 10/25."

"So what happens with Off Blue now? As illustrated in the now-removed manifesto, the goal of the project is to create a decentralized Sotheby’s, leveraging Web3 primitives like token-permissioned gates to restrict auction access to those holding a predefined amount of tokens. Off Blue will continue on without Kirby."

Off Blue appears to have been an NFT project which raised funds using the Rarible platform. However, the Rarible platform did not authorize the use of their platform for fundraising, and many people felt the project was a scam, particularly after Rarible brought down the page and the Twitter account name changed.

However, in the end, the team behind the Off Blue project offered refunds to anyone who wanted them, and still plans to launch their project.

HOW COULD THIS HAVE BEEN PREVENTED?

There don't appear to have been any user funds lost here, as refunds were offered to anyone who wanted them.

A lightweight framework could ensure the legitimacy of innovative projects, thereby reducing fraud, preventing the outright loss of funds, and ensuring recourse.

Check Our Framework For Safe Secure Exchange Platforms

No Title (Aug 3)
OFF BLUE and Blue Kirby Exit Scam After 2,400 ETH NFT-ICO on Rarible – CryptoMode (Aug 3)
What Yearn Finance’s ‘Blue Kirby’ Incident Means for Pseudonymity (Sep 3)
@rarible Twitter (Sep 3)
What Yearn Finance’s ‘Blue Kirby’ Incident Means for Pseudonymity (Sep 3)
OFF BLUE (BLUE) Token Tracker | Etherscan (Sep 3)
OFF BLUE NFT Project Returns Customer Funds After Rarible Suspension (Sep 3)
No Title (Sep 3)
No Title (Sep 3)
@seen_haus Twitter (Sep 3)
@seen_haus Twitter (Sep 3)
offblueオフブルー (Sep 3)
offblueオフブルー (Sep 3)

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